“You know, it’s funny. He sends his detail off a lot. He’s actually said to them that he doesn’t want to put them in a position where they’d have to–”
“Gotcha.” Pat nodded. “And they have to play along?”
“No choice. He’s meeting with people, but we don’t al-
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ways know who, and we’re not allowed to find out what he’s doing against SWORDSMAN.” A wry shake of the head. “Don’t you love it?”
“I like Ryan.” His eyes scanned the area, looking for trouble. It was automatic, just like breathing.
“We love the guy,” Norm agreed. “We think he’s going to make it. Kealty’s full of crap. Hey, I worked his detail back when he was V.P., okay? I fuckin’ stood post outside the door while he was inside boffin’ some cookie or other. Part of the job,” he concluded sourly. The two federal agents shared a look. This was an inside story, to be repeated only within the federal law-enforcement community, and while the Secret Service was paid to protect their principals and keep all the secrets, that didn’t mean they liked it.
“I think you’re right. So things here okay?”
“Russell wants three more people, but I don’t think he’s going to get it. Hell, we have three good agents inside, and three doing overwatch next door”–he wasn’t revealing anything; O’Day had figured that one out– “and–”
“Yeah, across the street. Russell looks like he knows his stuff.”
“Grandpa’s the best,” Norm offered. “Hell, he’s trained half the people in the Service, and you oughta see him shoot. Both hands.”
O’Day smiled. “People keep telling me that. One day I’ll have to invite him over for a friendly match.”
A grin. “Andrea told me. She, uh, pulled your Bureau file–”
“What?”
“Hey, Pat, it’s business. We check everybody out. We have a principal in here every day, y’dig?” Norm Jeffers went on. “Besides, she wanted to see your firearms card. I hear you’re pretty decent, but I’m telling you, man, you want to play with Russell, bring money, y’hear?”
“That’s what makes a horse race, Mr. Jeffers.” O’Day loved such challenges, and he’d yet to lose one.
“Bet your white ass, Mr. O’Day.” His hand went up. He checked his earpiece, then his watch. “They just started moving. SANDBOX is on the way. Our kid and your kid are real buddies.”
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“She seems like a great little girl.”
“They’re all good kids. A couple of rough spots, but that’s kids. SHADOW is going to be a handful when she starts dating for real.”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
Jeffers had a good laugh. “Yeah, I’m hoping ours’ll be a boy. My dad–he’s a city police captain in Atlanta– he says that daughters are God’s punishment on ya for being a man. You live in fear that they’ll meet somebody like you were at seventeen.”
“Enough! Let me go to work and deal with some criminals.” He slapped Jeffers on the shoulder.
“She’ll be here when you get back, Pat.”
O’Day passed on the usual coffee refill across Ritchie Highway, instead heading south to Route 50. He had to admit that the Service guys knew their stuff. But there was at least one aspect of presidential security that the Bureau was handling. He’d have to talk to the OPR guys this morning–informally, of course.
ONE DIED, ONE went home, and at roughly the same time. It was MacGregor’s first Ebola death. He’d seen enough others, heart-attack failures-to-resuscitate, strokes, cancer, or just old age. More often than not, doctors weren’t there, and the job fell on nurses. But he was there for this one. At the end, it wasn’t so much peace as exhaustion. Saleh’s body had fought as best it could, and his strength had merely extended the struggle and the pain, like a soldier in a hopeless battle. But his strength had given out, finally, and the body collapsed, and waited for death to come. The alarm chirp on the cardiac monitor went off, and there was nothing to do but flip it off. There would be no reviving this patient. IV leads were removed, and the sharps carefully placed in the red-plastic container. Literally everything that had touched the patient would be burned. It wasn’t all that remarkable. AIDS and some hepatitis victims were similarly treated as objects of deadly contamination. Just with Ebola, burning the bodies was preferable–and besides, the government had insisted. So, one battle lost.
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MacGregor was relieved, somewhat to his shame, as he stripped off the protective suit for the last time, washed thoroughly, then went to see Sohaila. She was still weak, but ready to leave to complete her recovery. The most recent tests showed her blood full of antibodies. Somehow her system had met the enemy and passed the test. There was no active virus in her. She could be hugged. In another country she would have been kept in for further tests, and would have donated a good deal of blood for extensive laboratory studies, but again the local government had said that such things would not take place, that she was to be released from the hospital the first minute that it was safe to do so. MacGregor had hedged on that, but now he was certain that there would be no more complications. The doctor himself lifted her and placed her in the wheel-chair.
“When you feel better, will you come back to see me?” he asked, with a warm smile. She nodded. A bright child. Her English was good. A pretty child, with a charming smile despite her fatigue, glad to be going home.
“Doctor?” It was her father. He must have had a military background, so straight of back was he. What he was trying to say was evident on his face, before he could even think the words.
“I did very little. Your daughter is young and strong, and that is what saved her.”
“Even so, I will not forget this debt.” A firm handshake, and MacGregor remembered Kipling’s line about East and West. Whatever this man was–the doctor had his suspicions–there was a commonality among all men.
“She will be weak for another fortnight or so. Let her eat whatever she wants, and best to let her sleep as long as possible.”
“It will be as you say,” Sohaila’s father promised.
“You have my number, here and at home, if you have any questions at all.”
“And if you have any difficulties, with the government, for example, please let me know.” The measure of the man’s gratitude came across. For what it was worth, MacGregor had a protector of sorts. It couldn’t hurt, he de-
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cided, walking them to the door. Then it was back to his office.
“So,” the official said after listening to the report, “everything is stabilized.”
“That is correct.”
“The staff have been checked?”
“Yes, and we will rerun the tests tomorrow to be sure. Both patient rooms will be fully disinfected today. All contaminated items are being burned right now.”
“The body?”
“Also bagged and to be burned, as you directed.”
“Excellent. Dr. MacGregor, you have done well, and I thank you for that. Now we can forget that this unhappy incident ever happened.”
“But how did the Ebola get here?” MacGregor demanded–plaintively, which was as far as he could go.
The official didn’t know, and so he spoke confidently: “That does not concern you, and it does not concern me. It will not be repeated. Of that I am certain.”
“As you say.” After a few more words, MacGregor hung the phone up and stared at the wall. One more fax to CDC, he decided. The government couldn’t object to that. He had to tell them that the outbreak, such as it was, was closed out. And that was a relief, too. Better to go back to the normal practice of medicine, and diseases he could defeat.
IT TURNED OUT that Kuwait had been more forthcoming than Saudi on forwarding the substance of the meeting, perhaps because the Kuwaiti government really was a family business, and their establishment happened to be on a very dangerous street corner. Adler handed the transcript over. The President scanned it quickly.
“It reads like, ‘Get lost.’ ”
“You got it,” the Secretary of State agreed.
“Either Foreign Minister Sabah edited all the polite stuff out, or what he heard scared him. I’m betting on number two,” Bert Vasco decided.
“Ben?” Jack asked.
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Dr. Goodley shook his head. “We may have a problem here.”
” ‘May’?” Vasco asked. “This goes beyond ‘may.’ ”
“Okay, Bert, you’re our champ prognosticator for the Persian Gulf,” the President observed. “How about another forecast?”
“The culture over there is one of bargaining. There are elaborate verbal rituals for important meetings. ‘Hi, how are you?’ can take an hour. If we’re to believe that such things did not take place, there’s a message in their absence. You said it, Mr. President: Get lost.” Though it was interesting, Vasco thought, that they’d begun by praying together. Perhaps that was a signal that had meant something to the Saudis but not the Kuwaitis? Even he didn’t know every aspect of the local culture.